'Admit state school pupils to university with lower grades'

Research commissioned by the Department for Education says that universities
should accept pupils from comprehensives with lower entry grades than
students from state grammars and private schools

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, commissioned by the Department for Education, shows that pupils from comprehensives are less likely to get into university than those from selective schools.Photo: Alamy

Universities should drop their entry requirements for pupils from state comprehensives to prevent them missing out on sought-after degree courses, according to research published by the Department for Education.

Teenagers should be admitted to university with lower grades than peers from the private sector to close the gap between state and fee-paying schools, it was claimed.

The study, by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Warwick University, said performance in GCSEs had the biggest bearing on pupils’ chances of gaining good A-levels and getting in to top universities.

Millions of pounds spent by universities each year to “widen participation” in higher education should be focused on pupils aged 14-to-16 to push them towards degree courses, it said.

But the research warned that the sheer gulf in standards between comprehensives and academically-selective state or private schools was so vast that more drastic measures were needed.

It said that university entry requirements “could be lowered for pupils from non-selective or low-value-added state schools in order to equalise the potential of all students being admitted to university”.

The recommendations are unlikely to be accepted Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who has repeatedly insisted that school-type and background should not be used as an excuse for missing out on university.

He has praised comprehensives such as Mossbourne Community Academy, which regularly sends sixth-formers to Oxbridge despite taking large numbers of pupils from deprived estates in Hackney, east London.

It will also fuel the debate over “social engineering” in the university admissions system following claims from some headmasters that lowering entry grades for state-educated pupils risks penalising bright students from successful private schools.

The study said: “Some universities have already started giving state school students lower entry offers than private school students... In spite of this, however, there are still very large differences in degree performance between these two groups, suggesting that more could be done.

“Our results also suggest that students from selective state schools should be excluded from receiving these lower offers; and that universities may wish to take into account a measure of school value-added or school performance as well when making their admissions offers.”

The study – commissioned by the DfE – analysed the extent to which school type had a bearing on children’s chances of getting into university, particularly sought-after institutions such as those belonging to the elite Russell Group.

It found that three-quarters of pupils from state grammar schools and academically-selective private schools went straight on to university at 18 or 19, with around 45 per cent going to “high-status” institutions.

But the proportion of pupils from comprehensives – non-selective state schools – taking a degree course at 18 dropped to just a third, with only eight per cent getting in to top universities.

The study suggested a correlation between school performance at 16 and pupils’ chances of going on to higher education. Fewer than half of pupils from state comprehensives gain five good GCSEs, compared with 97 per cent of those from state grammars and 85 per cent from selective private schools, it emerged.

Universities across England are currently ordered to set ambitious targets to “widen participation” among under-represented groups in return for the right to charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees.

Many admissions tutors now accept pupils from poor-performing state schools with lower entry grades – marking out their potential to succeed and compensating pupils whose exam results understate their true ability.

The study said the “focus of any ‘widening participation’ efforts should be to ensure that pupils from all schools make the right choices over the subjects and qualifications they take at [GCSE], and that they maximise their chances of getting good grades at this level”.

But it insisted that lower-grade offers should also be used to level the playing field between selective and comprehensive schools.

Mirroring a report from England’s Higher Education Funding Council earlier this year, researchers said pupils from comprehensives had more “potential” to succeed at university than those from selective schools.

“This may, in turn, suggest that university entry requirements could be lowered for pupils from non-selective or low-value-added state schools in order to equalise the potential of all students being admitted to university,” the study said.